Elimination Game
by betsy-malfoy
Summary: Many years Soubi has the same dream.


Soubi knew that there used to be more of them.

The missing one used to sit in the scraped by some invisible cats armchair next to the Girl. The two of them were the closest to each other in their strange company. He taught the Girl how to draw and shared some of his pencils with her. It seemed that she hardly noticed him missing. She went on being engrossed in drawing on the endlessly appearing from nowhere blank sheets of paper. She put the finished drawings in the bottom of the thin pile which never became thicker, even though the Girl never made a break in her pastime.

Though the Girl's friend was long gone, the memory of him still lingered with Soubi. He was a tall fair-haired young man with incredibly beautiful smile and kind eyes. He was an artist, too, and sometimes Soubi envied his bright ideas that kept emerging and outshined dull and lifeless pictures drawn by the Fighter. Nevertheless, this loss tore an unhealing black hole in Soubi's heart and filled it with the deepest sorrow, which roots he could see only having came back into this dream.

The Artist disappeared when Soubi gave his heart and soul to Seimei.

'Serves him right!' declared Ritsu-sensei. 'He was just distracting you from the really important things.'

Ritsu-sensei participated in their tea parties, too. He occupied his place at their round table like he was in charge but it was only half of the trouble. Sensei had got an extremely creaky chair, which seemed to irritate everyone, as he also had a nasty habit of moving all the time, turning to one of his companions after another. He had a deep interest in all that everyone else was doing, although nothing had changed since the very first tea party. Every time Soubi found himself to the right of sensei, feeling guilty for attracting the largest part of his attention to their half of the table. However, that part shrank a bit after the Artist had disappeared.

'Thank God, you are more sensible than he was,' Ritsu-sensei kept telling, looking at Soubi. 'You will never suffer the same fate.'

Kaido Kio was sitting to the left of sensei. Soubi had no idea of how his university acquaintance got into that dream, but he was there from the very beginning, or since Soubi turned fourteen. Despite having plenty of opportunities to do it, Soubi managed to distinguish his face only far later.

That Kaido was a simple friendly guy, not so bothersome as the real one. He amazed Soubi with his love for life and Soubi envied him. Kaido wasn't a fountain of creative ideas, he simply lived and enjoyed every moment: a cloud that took an intricate form for a couple of seconds, the taste of ripe strawberries, the feeling of the fresh linen on his bed. Kaido loved talking to the Artist, too, and he was also sad with his disappearance. Now he had Ritsu-sensei as the only one who could keep him company since Soubi remained silent all the time and the other participants of their party were left to their own devices. And one must say that Ritsu-sensei couldn't really hold a conversation.

Seimei had owned Soubi for two years already, when Kaido went missing, too.

'Less is better,' Ritsu-sensei told confidently to Soubi. 'Now that I don't have to keep an eye on those two lunatics, we are going to become a team and do the things properly.'

Soubi used to listen with an interest to the Artist and Kaido talking to each other, but never took part himself, as it seemed strange to talk to them. When the Artist disappeared, Soubi felt sorry for Kaido, nevertheless he never uttered a word, silently looking at his squabbles with Ritsu-sensei. Now when Kaido went missing, too, Soubi became the center of Ritsu-sensei's exhausting attention. It was almost unbearable and were Soubi to break his rule and talk, it would not help him even a little bit. It was totally impossible to exchange views with sensei as he didn't recognize the very idea of exchange and listened only to himself. Soubi finally got an opportunity to have a good look at the others, simply having nothing else to do.

To the left of Kaido's empty armchair there was an Old Woman. She often dozed for hours, sometimes she was sitting and staring at a crossword puzzle, lying next to her cup. Soubi had never seen her write a single letter.

Every single look at the Old Woman made Soubi unexplainably tired and indifferent, so he hastily looked away. The Girl sitting to the right of him gave a wholly different impression. Somehow Soubi knew that she had to continue drawing, otherwise something awful would happen. He was grateful to the Artist, who just in time engaged the girl in a peaceful and absorbing hobby.

Between the Old Woman and Artist's empty armchair there was a malfunctioning TV on a stand. There was an image on the screen but the interference made it almost impossible to discern anything. The sound was always turned off. The TV was standing so close to the table that it looked as if it was also participating in the teaparty.

Now that the tea party became so depressing that Soubi would have been very glad not to have this dream again, but for some reason he had it more often than anytime before, falling into it as soon as his head touched the pillow. Soubi was languishing from sensei's teachings but lately he couldn't even move his finger, not to say anything about turning away. Sensei approved when Soubi let Seimei escape from the library at «Seven Moons» and made a long speech about it. Meanwhile Soubi felt as if he was being skinned alive. Suddenly he felt someone's cool hand on his shoulder. This touch broke the spell and Soubi managed to turn and take a look.

The Girl was looking at him, having abandoned her drawings for the first time in all these years. She had a sullen gaze in her dark eyes and Soubi finally noticed the lack of cat ears on the top of her head. The Girl gave him a weak smile, took her hand away and went back to drawing.

'Don't trust her,' sensei warned him and Soubi was surprised to notice a hint of fear in his eyes. 'She will ruin everything if she interferes. She doesn't care about anything, but she will certainly step in if you keep feeling sorry for yourself. Then you will have a better reason for sorrow.'

Everything happened when Soubi made a first step towards Seimei, leaving crying Ritsuka and the silent white tomb of his parents behind. Soubi didn't know, were it Ritsuka's tears that mattered or something else, but a door suddenly burst open in his mind, the door that opened only when he was asleep. An astonishing picture was brought before his eyes: a small room with a round table set for a teaparty, Ritsu-sensei with his face distorted with fear, and the Girl slowly moving her chair aside and rising on her feet. In the next moment he felt that an overwhelmingly violent power grips his body, brushing his mind away.

'Stop! Ritsuka will never forgive you, if you kill his brother!' shrieked terrified sensei somewhere in the backyard of his mind, but his voice died immediately as the door was shut again and he stayed behind it.

Soubi was unemotionally watching Seimei's lips moving, him trying to reach his Fighter's mind but all in vain, because the power posessing Soubi in that moment had no authorities above it. It couldn't even understand words and painfully stinging words of the Sacrifice, that would have hurt Soubi, flew past it harmlessly.

Nisei fell down on earth stricken. The primal anger brought by the Girl didn't need the System or the spells, just fists were enough. Soubi saw his hands grabbing Seimei and punching wherever they could reach.

'That's enough. Don't kill him.' Soubi was surprised to recognise Artist's voice and felt that his call had an immediate response.

With regret he allowed his hands let the Sacrifice fall unconsciously on the ground, then his body turned round and stumbled away aimlessly. Ritsuka whisked to his brother noiselessly, but Soubi didn't care. He needed time to cool off. To remember Ritsuka and himself. Somewhere in the depths of his mind he heard the echoes of voices almost forgotten, and it brought him peace.


End file.
